


Spatter Patterns

by lyrisey



Category: Parahumans Series - Wildbow
Genre: Blood and Gore, Original Character(s), Psychological Trauma, Self-Insert, Trans Female Character
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-05-05
Updated: 2020-07-18
Packaged: 2021-03-02 23:13:54
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 2
Words: 2,295
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24015019
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/lyrisey/pseuds/lyrisey
Summary: I'm awful to all my characters. Why not myself?Non-BB self insert, heavy on OCs.
Comments: 2
Kudos: 35





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> This piece would not exist without the works of [theonewhowas,](https://archiveofourown.org/users/theonewhowas/pseuds/theonewhowas) as well as [Tempestuous](https://forums.spacebattles.com/threads/companion-chronicles-jumpchain-multicross-si-currently-visiting-intermission.787978/reader/) over on SpaceBattles.

The room has a table, two chairs; I'm sitting in one, staring at the door on the far wall.

There's a mirror on the wall; I look at my reflection, don't recognize myself until it clicks that I am _covered_ in blood, that it's caked in my hair and thick on my face like someone's applied copper-scented foundation with a trowel.

Only I can't _stand_ things being on my face, it's why I rarely do makeup stuff, it made me feel like I was suffocating-

_No. Focus._

_You're covered in blood, in a room with a table and what looks like a one-way mirror._

My head hurt. The _back_ of my head hurt, a throbbing pain like one of those stress headaches you get when you wear a headband or put your hair up weird.

 _You are in what looks like a police interrogation room, and you are_ **_literally_ ** _covered in blood._

_...fuck._

That's when the woman comes in; blonde hair in a pixie cut, dark officer's blouse, patches on her shoulders and a bronze badge pinned to her chest.

"The lady you came in with is fine; she wasn't injured or anything, despite all the blood." She gives me a look, drops the things she's carrying on the table between us: a pad, a pen, a package of wet-naps. "Don't suppose you'd be able to share anything about how the two of you got that way?"

I'm looking at her, staring at her blankly because _what lady,_ and I realize that there's a discontinuity if I try to go back, if I try to remember what happened before, I-

I was home, I remember being _home_ and then there's a gap and I'm here and I'm covered in blood that's drying tacky and thick like a kindergartner's tempera painting.

"Miss, it's okay." Her voice is gentle, easy and soft, like being in the shelter and trying to coax a cat out of the corner it's molded itself into. She gives the wipes a little push, sliding them in front of me.

I start cleaning myself up, fingers then knuckles then palms until the wipe is streaked pink-and-red and my hands smell like baby powder and pennies.

"You've still got a little, ah, on your face."

I freeze, staring down at my hands and realizing my Lady Macbeth impression has done absolutely nothing for the blood on my face that I've managed to completely forget about _again_ -

Pull out and unfold another wipe. Press it against my face so I can't see the look in their eyes.

Realize I'm not wearing my glasses.

"Dell." Her voice is kind, and I freeze up anyways because _that's not my name_.

I know my name, _chose_ my name; I am named for truth and revolution, after journalists and courtesans, and _none of them were named Dell_.

It's not my name and yet somehow part of me _thrills_ to hear it, that apprehensive brainclench of _yes that's me_ that takes a few years to grow into.

It's my name and it's not and it _is_ and cool fingers hook around mine, tugging my hands away from my face-

-and I'm pressed back into a corner of the room; chairs overturned, copper haze thick in the air and dripping from the light fixture.

There's blood on my hands again.

I stare at the blood on my hands, the form crumpled on the floor on the other side of the room, try to choke back the memory of _something_ blossoming through her flesh when she touched me, how it found _things_ in the bones in her hands and tendons in her wrists and twisted them into white-hot clockwork sparks, ready to burst-

I think she's still breathing.

* * *

There's faint shouting through the door. One of the light fixtures hisses, sputters, covered in red.

It's quiet, aside from that.

And I can't stand it.

I can't stand the quiet that lets my mind run like a gearbox in neutral.

I can't stand how I can hear her still breathing, and in the space between each of her breaths I can still remember how she _screamed as her hands exploded in gore_ , the air forced between her teeth like I'd swung a sledgehammer through her guts.

I can't stand how my mind's spinning to touch on everything and nothing, how my head _aches_ like someone's been holding me on tiptoes by the roots of my hair,

I can't stand how I keep reaching back to that gap in my memory, picking at it like a scab-

The door clicks, opens a hair; I look up just as the world turns white and pain spikes my ears.

* * *

I can't move.

 _I can't move_. I can't see, there's something _on_ me, adhesive, sticking to my skin and pulling at my hair as I try to move.

It's resilient; not _stopping_ me, but there's this sense of being able to move a little until gentle pressure intensifies to something past my strength, then smoothly yielding as I relax-

And it's all over me, thick and pressing against me and I can't move, all around me and I scream through my teeth and try to move and I _can't_ -

* * *

I can breathe.

I hadn't noticed that before.

I mean, if I _couldn't_ breathe, I wouldn't be noticing that for very long, but cool.

I think I'm a little calmer now.

* * *

"Hey there." The voice is muffled, dampened by the material covering me. "Can you hear me?"

I whine, helpless.

"Look, I know things seem really bad right now, but I want to let you know things are going to be okay." The voice pauses. "We're going to be mixing up some solvent for the containment foam that you're in, and then I've got a few questions for you."

* * *

The solvent for the foam smells like peaches and diesel, and tastes even worse as they hose off my face, leaving the rest of me encased.

My eyes sting from the light and the chemicals; I blink away upwelling tears, and get a view of a team of figures, dystopian in black webbing and silver chainmail, featureless helmets and disturbingly large-bore weaponry all pointed in my direction.

One of them pushes out the door, returns a minute or two later with a brown-haired woman in what I can only call a costume; mask and bodysuit and long coat, all in oil-sheened iridescent black and veined with golden lines like irregular cracks in a tortoise shell.

I'm staring; I _can't help_ staring, because who the hell _wears_ something like that?

"Dell, right?" She's tired, formal, businesslike. "I'm Muckraker. I have a few questions for you."


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Content warning: This chapter contains a stressful situation involving law enforcement officers.

I thought it was bad before.

I was wrong.

Muckraker asks questions; I answer haltingly, stop-and-start faltering denials and admissions of ignorance as she asks about things that came _before._

She asks questions, doesn't seem to pay attention to my responses, staring through me as I answer and then rapid-firing another question at me, smooth and fluent like she's memorized a list and she's working her way down.

She asks about the car, about the alley, about the girl and the men, and the questions brush at my memory like someone toweling off beach sand, sharp and scouring and- and- and-

I can't.

My head _hurts_ and-

_I can't._

* * *

"Dell."

My face is wet.

Muckraker's sitting in a chair in front of my cocoon, leaning in, intent on me; she's stopped asking questions, slumped a little in her chair like she's been here for hours.

She says my name again, waits for my attention to catch.

And when she has my attention, she apologizes.

She explains that at the worst moment of a person's life, sometimes a latent ability within them awakens.

"Parahumans. People like you and me, Dell."

The words sit, rigid between us; I'm shaking my head, _trying_ to shake my head and feeling my hair pull against the foam as I look at her, helpless. Lost.

"I want to go home."

* * *

They don't let me go home.

Muckraker tries to be kind as she explains again that I'm a _parahuman_ , that I have _powers_ , that the PRT cannot just _let me go_ out onto the street where someone might bump into me and I turn them into _red mist_.

She doesn't say _danger to self and others;_ she doesn't have to.

The blood on the walls says it for her.

* * *

Muckraker's gone out into the hall; the others are back, hulking in their thick armor and jingling mail.

One of them steps forward, crouches down until I can see my face smeared across the dark plastic of their visor, monochrome, eyes wide.

"We're going to get rid of this foam." Their voice is flat, electronically processed to where I can't identify anything about them. "Before we do that, we need to go over some things to keep everyone safe."

* * *

"Do you understand?"

I nod- try to nod, wince as the foam tugs at my trapped hair.

"Repeat it back for me."

"You tell me to do something, I do it." My mouth is dry; I can taste metal on my lips, chemicals and blood. "Immediately, no questions."

They nod. "Once you get up?"

"Move slowly. Don't approach anyone. Stay at least six feet away."

"Good." They pause for a moment. "What happens if you don't follow instructions?"

My throat works; I swallow thickly. "You use the foam."

"What happens if we think you're going to touch someone?"

"You use the foam."

"What happens if you run?"

"You use the foam."

Their helmet shifts, tilts: a nod. "And what happens if we have to use the foam?"

I look into the reflection of my eyes, try to pretend it's someone else's gaze, someone who's not terrified, isn't about to break down.

"Then we do things the hard way."

They nod. "Good."

* * *

They all leave, except for the one who draws the short straw, who stays behind and sprays me down with the truck-stop-fruit stand smell of the foam solvent; watching them fill with tension like a drip coffeemaker as my prison disintegrates into slick froth and foambergs, puddles on the floor.

"Get up. There's a mask on the table." Even through the filter, they sound nervous. "Put it on and grab the line."

I start to get up, breath hissing through my teeth as one of my calves _cramps_ , the pain twisting and vicious, and it takes everything I have to not flinch.

 _Move slowly_.

Push back against the wall for leverage, feel solvent-soaked clothes cling to my skin as I get to my feet, limp over to the table.

The mask is dark plastic with an elastic band, chunky and thick and designed to cover the eyes and cheekbones. I put it on, turn to look in the mirror-

The mirror's covered in blood and thicker things, tacky dribbles running down the glass.

"Come on."

I follow the figure into the hallway, my shoes squishing wetly.

* * *

Everything feels wrong, eerie, unreal; my attention fractioned, pulled between the feel of the coarse-woven cord in my fingers and how the people on either end have told me to _not let go_.

The pace is sedate, almost matrimonial as we proceed in halting lockstep; the building's deserted, hallways cleared of everyone except me and my entourage.

My shoes keep squishing, and I can't help but wonder what the foam solvent does to the synthetics I'm wearing.

We skip the elevator, take a stairwell down to the parking garage; there's a van waiting down there, and they open the rear doors, step back, leaving a space free for me to traverse.

"Get in."

The doors close and lock behind me.

* * *

I look down at my hands, realize they're _filthy_ , sticky with foam residue.

Yeah. Just _foam residue_.

I bring my hands together, grind the heel of one palm into the other in slow circles until the material caked on my skin starts to fleck and peel away, crumbling into little twists that fall to the van floor.

It's better than thinking about what's coming next.

* * *

A bumpy ride, another parking garage, another stairwell, and that's when it all goes wrong.

I haven't _done_ anything but I still feel tired, _drained_ , clutching the knotted buffer cord in my hand as we step-pause-step our way down another flight of stairs.

And then I slip, put my foot down wrong, feel my shoe twist and curl over the lip of the tread-

I don't even think, gripping the cord, reaching for the guardrail with my other hand-

And around me, everyone _reacts_ , quicker than I expect; establishing distance from me as large-bore muzzles come to bear in horrifying synchrony-

The moment holds, lengthens, splits into one and then another and then another as I stare at them, knuckles white around slack cord and guardrail and not moving _god I'm not moving_.

"I-I slipped." The words come out, fast, breathy, trembling- _I'm_ trembling, starting to shake as the adrenaline starts to echo through my body.

I watch their helmets turn slightly from side to side as they soundlessly check in with each other; they don't move in any of the ways that matter, don't relax, don't lower the foam guns.

_Then we do things the hard way._

"Please." The word comes out rough, my throat tight and raw like a handful of glass as my eyes start to burn and blur, wetness rolling down my face.

 _-it's all over me, thick and pressing against me and I can't move, all around me and I_ scream _, wordless and helpless and terrified-_

"Please, please don't." The only thing I can hold onto is the guardrail, and I can feel myself sinking, legs liquid and useless as tightness ratchets in my chest.

_"Please."_


End file.
